Stephan: Here is yet another proof that fostering wellbeing not only helps those you help it also helps you by putting years on the length of your life. Here are the facts.
When parents transfer resources to their kids or to their aging parents, research has shown, life spans increase.
Giving money or resources to your children or aging parents is likely to increase their life span, according to a new paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
How to find resilience during the coronavirus pandemicThere is a linear relationship between the amount and frequency of wealth transfers and the lengths of individuals’ lives, the study results have shown.”At the beginning of life you are reliant on others,” said lead study author Tobias Vogt, who is an assistant professor in the faculty of spatial sciences at the University of Groningen. “It’s a good idea to help others throughout the course of our lives.”The researchers’ goal was to track data on how every individual in a given society consumes and saves.Intergenerational wealth transfers can include money, but they can also include houses, benefits or time.
Wealth transfers are more common where social cohesion is high
The researchers recognized that other factors — such as country’s gross domestic product […]
Hiroko Tabuchi, Michael Corkery and Carlos Mureithi, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan: I have told my readers over and over that petroleum corporations are not going to wither away without a fight, which means doing even more damage to the earth than they have already done. And here is yet another proof of that prediction.
A dump in Nakuru, Kenya. A trade group is pushing United States trade negotiators to demand a reversal of the country’s strict limits on plastics. Credit: Khadija M. Farah/The New York Times
Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world’s plastic waste.
The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa.
According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world’s largest chemical makers and fossil fuel companies is lobbying to influence United States trade negotiations with Kenya, one of Africa’s biggest economies, to reverse its strict limits on plastics — including a tough plastic-bag ban. It is also pressing for Kenya to continue importing foreign plastic garbage, a practice it has pledged to limit.
Plastics makers are looking well beyond Kenya’s borders. “We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for […]
Stephan: Here is some wonderfully good news. Young people are becoming active in protecting American democracy by volunteering to serve at voting places. If you know a young person who is over 18, suggest that they, too, volunteer to work at polling places for the election.
A poll worker sanitizes a voting booth at a polling location in Louisville, Kentucky, on 23 June 2020. Credit: Bloomberg/Getty
Ahead of the 2016 election, Maya Patel, then a student at the University of Texas at Austin, registered 250 students to vote. But after seeing first-hand the hours-long lines voters were forced to navigate before casting their ballots, she knew there was more work to do. Two years later, she worked to install an additional polling location on the campus just in time for the midterm elections.
Now Patel is getting ready to be a poll worker in November. Why? Well, because it’s fun, and more importantly, she said, there’s a dire poll worker shortage around the country that could threaten the presidential election.
Elderly and retired people normally comprise a large portion of poll workers, but this year many of them have dropped out over fears of contracting Covid-19. In the 2016 presidential election, about 917,694 poll workers were responsible for managing more than 100,000 polling sites. This year, even as half of the American electorate is expected to […]
Stephan: If you live in another country than the U.S., as I have learned from travelling widely, the American healthcare system, actually an illness profit system, is incomprehensible. How is it possible I have been asked over and over, that the people of America don't see that it is in everyone's best interest -- except corporations -- to have universal birthright healthcare? Is it stupidity, or ignorance people will say. How can you tolerate bankrupting your family if someone gets sick? Good questions all and ones to which I do not have good answers. Do you?
Half in U.S. now, vs. 45% in 2019, concerned about health-related bankruptcy
15%, including 20% of non-White adults, carry long-term medical debt
Lowering drug prices a key voting issue for 35% of adults
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Half of all U.S. adults are concerned that a major health event in their household could lead to bankruptcy, an increase from 45% measured in early 2019 (PDF download). These results, based on a new study by West Health and Gallup, also show that the percentage of non-White adults who harbor this concern has risen from 52% to 64%.Fear of Health Event Leading to BankruptcyHow concerned are you that a major health event in your household could lead to bankruptcy? Extremely concerned, concerned, not very concerned or not at all concerned?
January-February 2019July 2020Change% Extremely concerned/ Concerned% Extremely concerned/ Concernedpct. pts.U.S. total4550+5*GenderWomen4751+4Men4249+7*RaceWhite adults4143+2Non-White adults5264+12*Age18-294355+12*30-494655+9*50-645248-465+3840+2* Statistically significant change (p<.05), design effect includedGALLUP-WEST HEALTH U.S. HEALTHCARE STUDY, JULY 2020
This study is based on 1,007 interviews with U.S. adults conducted from July 1-24, 2020. Over the past year, concerns about medical bankruptcy have increased […]
Stephan: The madness Donald Trump has created and stimulated in the United States is not going unnoticed in the rest of the world. How anyone can support or vote for this man I simply do not understand. He talks about what is going on as if he has nothing to do with it, and only he can stop it. It is the very essence of the Hitlerian Big Lie.
This is what we look like to the people of Asia. Aren't you proud? Neither am I, and it is going to take decades to repair what Trump, Pence, and their orcs have done.
PORTLAND, OR – AUGUST 29: Portland police hold back Chandler Pappas who was with the victim of a fatal shooting as he reacts in minutes after the incident on August 29, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. Far left counter-protesters and pro-Trump supporters clashed Saturday afternoon as a parade of cars carrying right wing supporters made their way from nearby Clackamas to Portland. Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty /AFP
Shootings that left three dead at protests against police brutality have stoked fears of rising violence as a deeply divided US heads into elections amid economic collapse, a deadly pandemic and the worst social upheaval since the 1960s.
President Donald Trump, hoping to secure a second term in November despite the crisis, heads Tuesday to Kenosha, the Wisconsin town that descended into violence last week after police shot a young black father seven times in the back.
The governor of the state, Democrat Tony Evers, called on Trump in vain to reconsider his visit, warning it would “hinder our healing” and arguing that the citizens of the town are already […]
